


Read You Like a Book

by wrote_and_writ



Category: Raven Cycle - Maggie Stiefvater
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-12
Updated: 2015-10-12
Packaged: 2018-04-26 00:16:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,057
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4982371
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wrote_and_writ/pseuds/wrote_and_writ
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>My sweet friend Liv sent this prompt: PLEASE DO adansey+ ‘i’m yelling to my friend about how attractive this celebrity is and then plot twist you’re the celebrity and in front of me wtf’ au<br/>It is a <i>little</i> different since I couldn't quite figure out who would be the celeb and who would be the fanboy and what type of celeb, and then inspiration struck. Hope you like it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Read You Like a Book

Adam Parrish was nervous. Not that he'd ever admit it. No. He was stoic and calm and in control. Totally.  


"Shit," he muttered, not quietly enough, judging by the glare leveled at him by a fellow classmate on her way to Freshman Orientation. Adam felt the heat rise on his cheeks, both intimidated and a little turned on by the power of disdain that radiated from the small, spiky-haired urchin. If he hadn't been terrified by that glare, he might have followed her in and attempted to make awkward small talk. Maybe once Noah got there...  


Who was he kidding? He ducked aside and found an empty bench hugging one of the paths leading away from the ivy-covered Student Union building. The bench was cold and slightly damp, but was mostly out of sight of the stream of students making their way to the first orientation seminar. Adam sat and took a well-thumbed paperback from his satchel. The book, _The Quest for the Raven King,_ fell open to Adam's favorite passage. Gansey, boy explorer, was about to enter the Cave of the Sleeping King. Though he had read the book a hundred times, Adam still felt the same shiver of anticipation he felt at twelve, when he first read the book. To find the Sleeping King would mean a wish granted.  


_Gansey gripped the short sword, the calm assurance of cold steel a balm to his nerves. This. This is what he had been searching for. The Sleeping King. The Raven King. Somewhere, just beneath his feet. Gansey felt the tug of the ley line like a tether, beckoning him deeper, deeper, into the earth.  
_

_Gansey adjusted the straps of his rucksack, checked to be sure his precious journal was secure within, closed his eyes, took a breath, lifted his foot and entered the cave._  


Adam shivered in the shade of the maples that screened the bench from sight. Twelve year old Gansey, walking into that cave. Adam had thought he could never be that brave. Not til he was seventeen did he make his own perilous journey, and it had been one of survival, not destiny. He rubbed his right ear unconsciously. He had left home when his father beat him and threw him against the porch railing, deafening him in his right ear. He wondered now if, given the chance, he would wish for the time back he had spent in fear.  


He read on.  


_Gansey expected the cave to be cold and wet, like the caves he'd explored in Wales. But the cave in the mountains of Virginia swallowed him, breathed as he descended, warm as the breath of a nightmare. The skin at the back of his neck prickled as he drew farther in. He recited the rhyme to himself._ (Here Adam mouthed the words):  


_One for sorrow, two for joy, three for girls, and four for boys, five for silver, six for gold, seven for a secret never to be told.  
_

_Seven challenges stood between Gansey and the Sleeping King. He held his sword up in front, counting his steps. If the old man was correct, the first challenge would--_  


A shadow fell across his page.  


"Is this a private party, or may I join you?"  


A tall boy with golden brown hair and the smile of a young prince stood before Adam. The bottom of Adam's stomach dropped out. He swallowed hard, twice, before he regained enough composure to move his bag to his feet to make room for the boy beside him.  


"Thanks." He sat down and offered a hand to Adam. "My name is Richard."  


"Adam." Adam closed his book and offered the boy his free hand. "I was just...waiting...for a friend, my friend, Noah, before going in." Adam looked at his wrist, which bore no watch. "He's late."  


The boy, Richard, smiled at him, and Adam swallowed again. Yep. Calm and stoic. The Adam Parrish brand.  


"Same, actually. My friend Ronan. Late as usual. I'd go in without him if I didn't think he'd use the excuse to skip orientation altogether."  


"Heh, yeah. I'm tempted to do just that, find someplace quiet to read."  


"May I?" Richard pointed at the book.  


"Oh. Um. Yeah, sure." Adam handed Richard his book. "It's old, I mean, it's like a security thing. New place, new life. I needed a little bit of home with me, not that home is someplace I have anymore, outside of this book, you know..." Adam bit back his rambling as he saw the boy's polite expression falter just a fraction, and Adam passionately wished he had brought any other book along.  


"Yeah. Sorry." He took the book from Richard and held it to his chest.  


"It's fine," Richard said absently. "I wasn't expecting to see it here."  


"It's a security thing," Adam said lamely. "This book, it got me through a lot when I was a kid, you know? I mean, you probably don't, but it was an escape, and...I am telling a stranger way too much," Adam finished with half a laugh.  


"I understand." Richard smiled at him again, though Adam could still see discomfort in his look.  


"I mean, I'm not one of those crazy superfans." Adam was babbling again, but he seemed powerless to stop himself. "I don't write fanfiction or anything. Or read it. Just, like, if a twelve year old kid with a sword and a journal could face the trials of the cave, in _Virginia __, maybe I could get out of my shitty trailer. In Virginia!"  
_

Richard murmured something as he took a book from his bag. He was about to show Adam, when Adam pulled up his sleeve.  


"I mean, I got this tattoo the day I was emancipated," he said, showing Richard the triangular symbol of the ley lines, chapter art for all the Raven Cycle books. It enclosed an ugly, puckered scar on his wrist, a burn scar. His father had put a cigarette out on his arm when he was thirteen. The ley lines bound it, taking away the power it had over him.  


Richard blanched when he saw Adam's arm, though whether it was because of the tattoo or the scar, Adam couldn't say. Richard let the book he'd taken from his bag, a worn leather journal, drop on the bench between them as he took Adam's wrist in his cool fingers.  


Adam looked down at the book so he didn't have to look at Richard's face. His eyes lit on a familiar symbol, tooled into the leather cover.  


"Oh man! What a cool journal!" He took his hand away to pick up the journal. Richard made a noise in the back of his throat as Adam ran his calloused thumb over the cover. "Where did you get this?"  


"My father," Richard said. He looked like he was about to say something when a pale, angular boy dressed head to toe in black slunk towards them.  


"Christ, Gansey, you found a fanboy already?"  


"Gansey?" Adam said at the same moment Richard said "Ronan," with a note of warning in his voice.  


"Oops." The boy, Ronan, favored Adam with a shark-toothed grin.  


"Is your name Gansey?" Adam gaped. "Are you--?"  


"Can we pretend you don't know that, Adam?"  


"But you--"  


"I love it when the pieces fall into place," Ronan smirked.  


"Shut the fuck up, Ronan," Gansey hissed. Adam and Ronan both stared at him. Ronan looked abashed, as though Gansey never spoke like that to him, ever.  


"But you--" Adam started, but he couldn't form any more words. He'd known, of course, that the author of the Raven Cycle, Roger Malory, had based his protagonist on a real boy. Everybody knew that. But he never thought--  


"Please, please pretend you don't know." Gansey's face remained calm, but his eyes held silent pleading.  


Ronan shifted awkwardly from one foot to the other, shy, something Adam didn't think he was used to being, but he couldn't stay to find out.  


"I'm sorry This is just, this is so, this --" Adam was saved from having to complete the thought. He caught a glimpse of Noah standing by the front doors, scanning the crowd for him. "I've got to go. My friend...I've got to go." He picked up his bag and all but ran, but not before he heard Gansey launch into whispered rebuke of Ronan.  


"Oh god, oh god," Adam muttered.  


"Hey! Adam!" Noah's face brightened when he saw Adam, but Adam cut off his greeting as he hauled Noah bodily into the Union.  


"Keep walking," he said, dragging Noah into the conference room.  


"What happened?"  


"He said his name was Richard," Adam said.  


"Okay?"  


"And I blathered on to him for like ten minutes about that stupid book!"  


"I'm gonna need a little more context, Adam."  


Adam found two empty seats near the back of the room and dropped down, pulling Noah down beside him.  


"I just spent like ten minutes nerding out about the Raven Cycle to Richard Gansey. Richard. Gansey. Richard. Campbell. Gansey. The Third!" Adam managed to keep his voice down, but his face burned at the memory. "Oh, my god, he probably thinks I'm the most pathetic loser in the history of losers!" He leaned forward and covered his face with his hands.  


"Oh, I meant to tell you about him."  


Adam whipped around to stare at Noah. "You _knew_ he was here?"  


"Yeah."  


"How on earth could you have known that, Noah?"  


"You remember that party I went to Saturday? I met his roommate."  


"That guy you hooked up with? The one with the tattoo?"  


"Yeah." Noah gave a happy little sigh.  


"He's an asshole!"  


"You don't even know me." A hurt voice behind Adam made him turn around. The shark boy stood there. He nodded to Noah. "Hey. We still on for tomorrow night?"  


Noah grinned up at him. Adam shot him a murderous look. Ronan cleared his throat.  


"Sorry about back there," he said, clearly _not_ sorry. "Gansey wanted me to invite you out for pizza after the seminar. Come, too, Noah. Maybe we don't have to wait til tomorrow."  


"Yeah," Noah said before Adam had a chance to reply. "We'll meet at your place and go over together?"  


"Yeah, cool." He bumped fists with Noah, nodded to Adam, then strolled out of the room as the dean of students took the podium to begin his address.  


"I cannot go to pizza with Richard Gansey," Adam hissed, earning a glare from the other students around them.  


"You can and you will," Noah whispered back. He smiled at the glaring students, and they turned around to ignore them. "It'll be fine."  


Adam rubbed the scar and tattoo. "I showed him this," he murmured. Noah put a hand on his thigh. Noah was his oldest friend. He knew better than anyone the scars Adam carried.  


"You should come to pizza. Gansey's cool. He's a bigger nerd than you are, and I bet we can have fun making Ronan blush."  


"There's no way that guy has any shame," Adam said, feeling calmer.  


"Oh, I don't know about that," Noah said happily. He gave Adam a knowing little smile.  


Adam rolled his eyes. His friend was an unrepentant flirt who could, and did, make grown men grow pale. It could be fun.  


"Alright, we'll go out for pizza, but please please _please_ do not mention that I spent seventh grade writing 'Mr. Adam Gansey' on my notebook."  


"Never. You'll only tell them I wrote 'Noah and Harry Potter-Czerny on mine."  


"True. Mutually assured destruction." Adam shouldered Noah affectionately and turned to try and catch some of what the dean was saying.  


"However, I did learn that Gansey is bi, shy, and single, just like you," Noah whispered in his good ear halfway through a presentation about Greek Life on campus, "so, you know, you've got that to talk about instead."  


"Someday, I'm gonna find your off button, Czerny," Adam replied, but he nudged Noah again. His best friend had seldom steered him wrong, with the notable exception of Tad Carruthers freshman year of high school. He settled back in his chair and smiled. Noah knew all the best and worst parts of him. If he thought Gansey, real Gansey, was worth a shot, then Adam was going to take it.


End file.
